Friday, 5 November 2010

stripathons and such

seems like it's time to climb back on the horse; my calendar says November (actually it doesn't I've just realised that and I'm going to stop writing and change it. Right, i'm back, crisis averted). i bet you're all excited to hear about the thrill that is logging base miles, not drinking (as much beer) and lifting (girly sized) weights. Well you'll have to wait until there's nothing more exciting to write about. right now i'm about to divulge a fascinating insight into the last few weeks of my offseason, peppered, as always with amusing anecdotes, top tips, uncorrected typos and even a sly recipe.

first up; halloween has been and gone: this is a great time to stock up on minature chocolate goodies which you can tote about in your jersey pocket. it's also a good time to buy pumpkins really cheaply. if you roast the pumpkin you can put it in oatmeal with cinnamon and honey and raisins and almond milk. it's pretty much the ultimate autumnal breakfast and it's sooper cheap and healthy. then you can roast the seeds with some salt and herbs/ spices. mix them up with raisins, your little goodies (i like peanut m&ms- they have a gi of like 48) from halloween and some almonds for a pretty damn fine trail mix for all those long slow miles you're going to be logging (or all those movies you're going to be watching).

Incidentally don't fall into the trap of thinking all this domestic godliness doesn't come without risks, right now I'm nursing a smoothie related wound. Apparently hot espresso in a cold smoothie machine isn't such a good idea. The glass cracked, the blade kept running and i was trapped in a frozen fruit/ coffee/ glass tornado. Luckily I'm harder than titanium coated nails and if ought my back to the blender and unplugged the little bugger but not before it had propelled some glass into my hands and some milk into every bloody orifice in my kitchen. 45 minutes and a roll of tissue paper later and i think I've avoided the potential for fermenting smoothie in the biscuit drawer.

I'n the brief periods in between all the eating and drinking i've been doing i have managed to poke my nose into the public sphere a little bit (yep Habermas reference on a cycling blog). Last Saturday i visited the TCOYD conference in San Diego. admittedly i wasn't quite as set up as some of the exhibitors; essentially my stand consisted of me, a bike and some rollers. What it lacked in grandeur it made up for in purple spandex and enthusiasm. I got to meet lots of really cool local people, share the 'betes knowledge and try to balance on the rollers whilst people poked my omnipod, all in a day's work!

I want to highlight a particular friend of mine called Art. Art went blind at 21 due to complications from type 1, he was on medicaid and it's not always easy. Anyway art has better control now and has started riding; with the help of his dedicated friend and stoker Don and my somewhat haphazard coaching he's making progress. He's not on cgm which makes it pretty tough for him to check often (imagine getting the blood on a strip when you couldn't see either) but we're working on it (help would be appreciated). His bike's a piece but once again, we're trying to find something better. What's important isn't the bike, or the 'betes technology it's the fact that Art is the most enthusiastic athlete i've ever worked with. i told him to set his goals high and he has; he wants to be, in his own words: "the fastest blind dude in the world"...watch this space (pun intended)

Art went blind when he was 21 but in parts of the world he'd be lucky to live that long with diabetes. right now the team is preparing for a stage race in Rwanda. this'll be the first time an entirely diabetic team will be racing in a uci level event. I'm aiming to make the team for this race next year. For now, there's a more important goal. Thousands of people in Rwanda live with diabetes but without the supplies needed to thrive or even survive. YOU can help. click hereand donate your unused strips, meters, lancets and pictures of ex presidents printed on green paper. These people need your help, they suffer from the same malady that i do and but for an accident of birth our roles could have been switched. I've spent a fair chunk of time in Africa, it's a place which is very close to my heart . It's pretty hard to condemn people to an ealry grave when we CAN provide what they need to thrive especially when it's simply by sharing things that we'd normally throw away. so do it NOW.

right Bob Geldof bit over (i think his hair is even messier than mine) I have to go and retrieve some pumpkin seeds from the oven. In other news listen to postcards from a young man by the manic street preachers, they've yet to make an album which i didn't like. (and yes someone else took that picture, and they twittered it, and i stole it)

5 comments:

and if you're badass enough to read the comments and comment on this blog AND live in san diego there might be some secret underground revolutionary food collective dinners coming up, and i might invite you.

Point of information: those faces on mostly-greenish paper are not *all* of dead presidents -- in fact, the ones one needs most ("benjamins") are of a "founding father" who was never president. (Similarly, the piece of green paper closer to what many people can afford -- the so-called "sawbuck" -- is not of a "dead president", but of the United States' first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.)

BTW, inability to eat spicy food? The stereotype is that that is "normal" for a Britisher. The question is whether that definition of "spicy" means "seasoned with multiple types of high-capcasin-content peppers" rather than all culinary seasonings (including the infamous "Scarborough Fair" quartet, or any of the other forty-some-odd non-pepper options in my somewhat paltry spice cabinet)?